Wiring the Wells

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Wiring the Wells

A smart in-pipe data system could revolutionize how - and where - we get oil.

The oil industry has always grappled with a basic problem: Drill bits are blind. But knowing conditions at the business end of the bit - the local geology, the rate of penetration, the pressure of oil deposits - makes the work more efficient. Look-ahead capability, as drillers call it, would turn hard-to-find reserves into moneymaking wells - an important skill given the rising tensions in the Middle East.

Over the past several years, sensors for collecting data downhole have grown increasingly sophisticated. But the technology for getting the information back up to the drillers has remained primitive until now.

Working with a $1.8 million seed grant from the US Department of Energy, two companies - drilling-equipment manufacturer Grant Prideco of Houston and Novatek Engineering, an oil-field technology outfit in Provo, Utah - have fitted a pipe with high-speed data lines. Called IntelliPipe, the gear routes information to the surface at 1 million bits per second - 100,000 times faster than current systems.

Smart wells have been in development since the early 1990s, but to date that term has applied only to finished wells equipped with permanent gauges. Real-time data on subsurface geology, and on the status of the wellbore itself, is still transmitted by a cumbersome method called mud pulse telemetry. Pressure pulsations are sent through the well's column of mud to the surface, moving the data upward. The technique is not only slow - it transmits as laggardly as 10 bits per second - it's costly, because it requires ruggedized sensors, microprocessors, and memory downhole.

IntelliPipe erases those limitations. A drill pipe with built-in telemetry sends data to the surface in real time, as the well is dug. Embedding the transmission lines was the easy part, according to Brett Chandler, Grant Prideco's product manager. "Running wire down a section of pipe isn't that difficult. Getting the signal across the threaded connection, where pipe sections screw together, is where the art, and the intellectual property, comes in."

A typical oil rig is assembled in 30-foot sections as it snakes down miles into the earth. Instead of running wire from section to section, an engineering problem that defeated previous efforts, IntelliPipe uses smart fittings that can transmit information across the small gaps between the pipes. How the signal jumps from one to another is proprietary; Chandler will only describe it as "a noncontacting means of passively transmitting the data from coil to coil."

Grant Prideco, which will market the technology through a joint venture with Novatek called IntelliServ, expects IntelliPipe to be in use later this year. If it works, the smart pipe could revolutionize the way companies drill for oil. Because the bit sniffs out sweet spots as it drills, the number of wells required to develop a given field will drop. Ultimately, IntelliPipe would allow drillers to collect seismic data from underground, opening up new channels for subsurface exploration.

This means that IntelliPipe will make finding hidden oil pockets, and pumping oil from marginal wells in existing fields, much more cost-effective. Because most remaining domestic oil lies in hard-to-reach reservoirs in places like the North Slope of Alaska and the deepwater regions of the Gulf of Mexico, IntelliPipe could significantly prolong the life of US fields - and reduce American dependence on foreign oil.